It is really unhelpful to title a thread something as uninformative as 'New Book'. You can edit your original post and amend the subject to something more meaningful, and then you might attarct more interest.

The 'chaotic' billing of the diesel introduction - as seen in the publisher's link - is still well remembered in WGC, by those now elderly folk who earned their crust in Town at the time. My former dentist who retired about ten years ago used to joke that he had made a lot of money from the consequent tooth grinding at delays, and the straightforward 'rattle everything loose' performance of the Cravens bogcarts.

It was always fairly rough and ready though. My father recalls his first ever experience of the departure from the Hotel curve platform where he had boarded, by another fellow also standing telling him, 'brace yourself'. On the occasions of visits when he gets loose on my layout, he resets CV2 on the N2s to about 20 to get what he sees as the authentic GN suburban steam start...

They were too. The electric service though most efficient is just a little soulless. If only we could convince the present operators to have a Doncaster pacific or V2 permanently lurking in steam somewhere between KX and Belle Isle.

Funny story here; a few years ago an A4 was in just such a spot, presumably waiting a steam special working. The young lady sitting alongside me asked 'what's that?' so I explained briefly about Doncaster's pacific development; next question 'when does it go into service?'.

Good point, manna. That's one thing about being 'at a distance'. You're able to rekindle fond memories from a book or whatever without direct reminders of things being otherwise outside your front door, so to speak. Granted, this can be experienced within Britain, but being far away somehow seems to give the detachment an extra dimension. In a sense, I suppose it's a variation on the theme of absence making the heart grow fonder. Do any other ex-pats agree with this, or is it just fertile imagination on my part?

Actually it has always been like that. Dig around in the earlier literature of England, or among the classics of Greece and Rome, and you will find authors forever bewailing the ignorance of the recent past of the young of today. And indeed while I am interested in matters historical, I couldn't tell you how to arrange the yoking of eight oxen on a dark ages plough, and organise getting my sulung tilled in time for spring planting; but our forebears on the land must have known how to do it...